


Paws For Thought

by CandidCantrix



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Cat, Fallow Mire, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Undead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-31
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-12 07:19:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4470281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CandidCantrix/pseuds/CandidCantrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Dorian, despite his best efforts, acquires a cat.</p><p>(Edit: There is a now a podfic available, thanks to isweedan's reading talents! Go check it out in the end notes :) )</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paws For Thought

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lightningcatters (Phoeliac)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoeliac/gifts).



> For [LightningCatters](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoeliac/pseuds/Lightningcatters), who prompted "Dorian and Bull acquire moustache cat".

Sometimes, Dorian liked to imagine himself returning triumphant to Tevinter and attending a gathering held by any one of the many, many magisters who fancied themselves collectors. He knew the format: a large, high-ceilinged room; the faint scent of lyrium from the wards; and enough food and drink to keep everyone slightly less than satisfied. The gauche hung Orlesian paintings on the walls while the better bred left antiquities out on tables, as if they couldn't care less whether the guests handled their priceless Glory Age Nevarran urn, sculpted for Caspar Pentaghast himself. 'Oh, that old thing? Just a curiosity, you know - we've got two more in the attic.'

 In his head he was seated on a couch in the middle, surrounded by ex-classmates and family friends he'd disliked; people for whom the well-trained Seheron slaves were as close to the exotic as they'd ever get.

And in his mind, he'd say, "Tell me, have any of you heard of the Fallow Mire?"                                                 

And some not so dim acquaintance would say, "Isn't that in Ferelden?"

Dorian would smile winningly, gesture at the speaker with a glass of wine in one hand.

"Very good! And that alone should warn people off." He'd take a sip of the wine. "But this is a dark corner even for the South, believe me. I went there with the Inquisitor once - on a vital rescue mission - and the sun didn't break through once the whole time we were there. We had to cut our way through entire lakes of undead!"

"Undead?" one of his admirers would say, with a look of horror on their face.  At one point Dorian had liked to make this one look like Rilenius, but it'd got overdone. He preferred to assign some anonymous young man's face to the role nowadays. He'd had a thought about showing off to Bull, but it had been a dismal failure. He couldn't see Bull sitting around looking wide-eyed and simpering.

"Oh yes," Dorian would say. "They came in waves, and corpses don't tire, you know. I had to lay down constant fire glyphs and drink seven lyrium potions just to keep up."

He usually let the daydream fizzle out around there, on the stares and oohing and aahing of the crowd. It wasn't very realistic, but it helped greatly with the real, unromanticised Fallow Mire, which was a freezing shithole that smelt of mud, stagnant water and the frequent whiff of barbecued corpse flesh. 

Dorian shuddered as he stepped in something and his boot went squish. The left one had developed a leak a while back. Who knew exactly what they were walking through, but he was fairly sure it was disintegrating the leather.

Adaar, as ever, was practically skipping ahead, with zero regard for things like _sticky mud_ or _corpse-infested waters_ or _slime-coated rocks_. Unsurprising, perhaps. It wasn't like he hadn't already watched her run through the sand dunes of the Hissing Wastes and the ice in the Emprise. If the Inquisition really wanted to prove her divinity to Val Royeaux, they should invite the Orlesians to see her on the ramparts at Skyhold.

"Why did we even send our scouts here in the first place?" he asked, throwing the words into the damp air. "Can't we leave the rifts to swallow the place and be done with it?"

Iron Bull, only about a step ahead of him, said, "What? Can't take a little muck on your robes?"

He half-turned and the muscles on his chest visibly flexed. Dorian was struck, as he sometimes was, by the bizarre reminder that he'd touched that chest. Four times now, and yet he still wasn't entirely sure it hadn't been a delusion, like a dream he'd had after a bottle or two of good Orlesian brandy. Unlike Bull, he wasn't all that good at leaving marks, so really he was going by Bull's word that it had happened at all.

"It's alright for you," said Dorian. "This muck comes up to what, the soles of your feet? The rest of us have to wade through it."

"More like swim," muttered Varric.

"Speak for yourself," said Adaar from the front, leaping a full foot up onto a rock.

The Inquisitor led them onto relatively dry ground - dry in that the damp earth had simply soaked up the water like a sponge instead of spitting it back up in puddles - and picked up the pace. She strode ahead like a beacon; Dorian stumbled and swore at a pebble. The Iron Bull - well, the Bull stayed close enough that Dorian was thinking of taking precautions against being impaled, but then he'd always had a habit of doing that, so it was - it was normal, probably. Completely separate from other things.

 A little way uphill was yet another of those sad-looking wooden shacks. Dorian barely held in his groan as he saw Adaar's head snap up, and utterly failed when she said the dreaded sentence: "Let's take a look around."

The matching looks on Bull and Varric's faces were somewhat satisfying - nice to know he wasn't the only sane one in the party - but no one voiced their thoughts out loud, and so they all ended up shuffling over the threshold. There was, at least, a pleasant lack of skeletons inside, though he wasn't fond of the way the walls were visibly rotting. Whatever was in the air hit him right in the back of the throat whenever he was forced to breathe. His eyes watered with it.

Adaar got straight on with digging into boxes. Varric headed over to the table, where a letter had been left crumpled and forgotten. Bull simply stood and watched as Dorian gave a chest a half-hearted poke. His finger came back covered in something slimy and green and he didn't, absolutely _did not_ let out a whimper of disgust.

"Looks like another group of people who got out before something got them," said Varric, looking up from the letter.  "Who knows if they made it, though."

Adaar continued to look through every single empty apple barrel and broken crate in the vain chance that one might be concealing something shiny. Dorian had no moral qualms about looting  - one way or another, these people clearly weren't coming back - but this, he was happy to leave to the Inquisitor. Even if she found yet another improbably gorgeous and well-balanced staff in here, she'd have to scour the thing with all the bleach in Skyhold before giving it to him.

Just then, a high, thin whine cut through the shack.

"Wisp?" said Varric.

"That wasn't a wisp," said Bull.

"Oh, goodie!" said Dorian. "A _variety_ of horrifying monsters."

But he was already pulling the Fade down into barriers around them while readying fire at the end of his staff. Through the green shimmer of his shields, he could see Varric raise Bianca, and Bull his axe. Adaar was scanning the walls.

There was another whine, sliding low to high.

A little black and white cat slunk out from behind a box, with the air of a socialite who'd arrived unfashionably late.

"Oh!" said Adaar, softly.

"A _cat?_ " said Varric.

Dorian completely failed to hold back his snort of laughter. "Don't drop your weapons yet!" he said. "We don't want to get overwhelmed!"

"I don't know," said Iron Bull, eyes gleaming. "We take one paw each, you think that'll do it?"

"But what if it's a mage?" said Dorian, and looked up to find his face twisting into a grin that was an exact mirror of Bull's. He froze. It was - it was this thing that kept happening, recently, where he assumed he and Bull were doing their normal batting back and forth, and then the joke would fall gently and he'd realise they'd ended up making it together.

It didn't feel so bad, but he still looked quickly back at the cat.

"It's a young one," said Adaar. "Look how small it is."

She crouched down before the cat  - which, she was right, was really more of a kitten - and stretched out a hand. The kitten took a step forward, and its nose twitched against the tip of Adaar's middle finger. Living in the Mire clearly hadn't suited it. It had a V-shaped cut in one ear and a scratch on its nose, and the fur on its legs was matted and brown.

"Hey, Dorian, it's got your moustache!" said Bull, with sudden glee.

Dorian would have dearly loved to roast him for the comparison, but unfortunately even he could see the similarity. Now the kitten had come further into the light, there was quite clearly a curving white mark against the black of its mouth, and it did look remarkably like the shape of his moustache. _Blast_ the Bull.

So instead of denying it, he said, "Looks a bit battered, doesn't it? If you're going to start comparing me to animals, at least pick something with a better pedigree."

"Probably belonged to the people who lived here," said Bull. "Doubt they were the type to own anything fancy."

Adaar crooked the fingers she'd offered in front of the kitten, trying to coax it closer. "Did they not take you with them?" she murmured to it, and the kitten rubbed its head against her palm. "Have you been all by yourself here?"

Dorian, for the first time since they'd arrived in this infernal place, felt a little ray of sunshine enter his chest at the sight of their hulk of an Inquisitor, she who was massive, muscle-bound, mighty and all other good words beginning with m, fawning over a kitten that would have fit in one hand.

"You know, I knew a mage who said he kept a kitten with him in a pouch," said Varric.

"There are pets in the Circle?" said Adaar, from the floor.

Varric laughed, a little harsher than Dorian had come to expect from him. "Ha! No, this guy _wasn't_ a Circle mage. Not when I knew him."

"An apostate, then," said Dorian. "Is it just me, or are most of your more interesting Southern mages apostates? Vivienne excluded."

"Bet the apostate didn't keep the kitten around while fighting, though," said Bull.

"Oh, you'd be surprised, Tiny. The guy was a Grey Warden. Way he told it, the cat came with him right to the siege of Amaranthine." His smile dropped. "Of course, his stories weren't always the most reliable."

"Is that a pot calling a kettle black I hear?" said Dorian.

Varric looked wounded, though it was as difficult as ever to tell if it was genuine.  "Hey, the Tale of the Champion was entirely truthful! Well, more or less."

"Alright, I'll give you that one," said Dorian, inclining his head. "I've met Hawke, and I don't think I'd put anything past the man. But what about your other books? Cassandra forced me to read the first one in that Swords and Shields series of yours. You can't tell me the sex scene in Chapter 9 is in any way physically possible."

"It's fiction!" said Varric. "You can't expect fiction to be reliable."

Bull leaned in, a familiar shadow over Dorian's shoulder. "Actually," he said,  perfectly audible to both their companions, "that position _is_ doable.  Just depends how far you can spread your legs." He grinned. "Wanna give it a go when we get back?"

As always when Bull decided to push boundaries in public, Dorian had the moment of blind panic when he realised what Bull was implying in front of _everyone_ , followed by the bizarre realisation that not only did no-one disapprove, no-one even really cared. Varric had got through most of his jokes - though he suspected the dwarf had a few saved for good situations - and Adaar had come for that one awkward conversation, then dropped the subject once she was satisfied she'd got the gossip. Dorian wasn't sure if it had been personal, or the woman's need to know the state of all her people at all times. It was a somewhat heartening trait, though. It would be awfully embarrassing if someone called the Inquisitor _weren't_ good at ferreting out secrets.

Right now, though, she was absorbed with her creature and didn't even look up at Bull's comment. Varric was watching the spectacle of a huge Vashoth tickling a kitten under the chin. Whatever he and Bull had, it'd become...mundane. Nothing noteworthy, nothing remotely scandalous.

That was good.

Surely?

Dorian looked up at Bull, and tried out a smile of his own. It didn't come out as cocky as he'd have liked, but Bull didn't seem to mind.

"Depends which one of us is doing the spreading," he said. "I'd like to still be able to ride a horse by the end."

"Oh, I'll give you something to ride," Bull murmured back, hot and low, and Dorian was struck with the urge to demand that they stop and make camp right in the middle of the mire, at 3 in the afternoon.

That was when the Inquisitor looked up and announced, "I'm taking it," which made Dorian wonder if things were about to get more scandalous after all, before realising that she was still staring at the cat. He was forced to make a disturbing mental leap from sex to kittens.

"How would you get it back to camp, boss?" said Bull. "We've still got a whole lake of these undead assholes to get through."

"Not taking it to camp," said Adaar. "I mean with me. On our travels. In a pouch, like Varric's mage."

The true benefit of being the Herald of Andraste, thought Dorian, as he watched Adaar offload a couple of elfroot potions onto Bull and scoop the kitten off the ground, was that no-one argued with you when you said things like that.

\- - -

They set off back along the path through the Mire - the only path through the Mire,  unless one had the ability to walk on corpses - and Dorian gripped his staff a little tighter. Somehow, he doubted the Inquisitor would be quite so skilled with her sword hand now she was busy trying to coax a kitten to stay in her bag with the other.

She'd almost got it to sit still by the time they approached the wooden bridges, and then she sneezed.

Adaar - well, Adaar didn't do anything on a small scale. Her sneeze was a concussive blast loud enough to jolt the cat upright, head out of the bag and ears pricked, and woke three corpses from the lake without even going near the water. Adaar stroked the kitten back flat again while the rest of them took point to dismember the enemy.

It wasn't the last incident. Every so often, the clack of their boots on the wood was punctuated by an "Aaah -" from the Inquisitor, and a clatter as three pairs of hands - Dorian's included, went straight for the weapons. But she did her obvious best to hold it in. Her chest puffed up in little pre-sneeze gasps, and her lips pressed together and her head shook as she tried to ward it off, but eventually the sneeze would pop out in a hilariously high-pitched attempt to keep it quiet.

Dorian exchanged a look with the others. Varric shrugged.

Eventually, a particularly big sneeze worked its way to the fore, and despite all her chest puffing and lip pressing and head shaking routine, the thing rocketed out of her with acoustics that could only have come from a Vashoth mountain sneezing into  a large and empty mire, and the kitten shot right out of the bag, onto Adaar, and clawed its way up her sleeve.

Adaar managed to cut her cry of pain down to a brief whimper - and this was the woman who'd been fighting off five undead at once an hour ago - and started calming the cat down again while unhooking its claws one by one. Her eyes were streaming.

Bull eyed the Inquisitor up. "You coming down with something, boss?"

"This blasted Mire would make anyone ill," grumbled Dorian.

He couldn't deny that the Inquisitor seemed to be in bad shape, though. Now he looked more carefully, he could see that Adaar wasn't crying, just blinking through eyes that were red with irritation.

"Aw, do you feel some sneezes coming on too?" said Bull.

"If I do, I'll try not to scare any small animals."

Then he blinked as Bull dropped back to walk by his side. It turned into uncertain eye-contact with Bull examining him like a weapon that needed sharpening.

"You're feeling okay, though?" Bull said.

A jibe at his state of health and he'd laugh it off, but he hadn't prepared any comebacks for genuine concern.

"Apart from the lake filling my boots? Fine," he said. A thought occurred. "Are _you_ alright? If this thing affects Qunari..."

"Andraste's ass," groaned Varric. "The pair of you! She's probably just allergic to that cat."

"Allergic? But I - I -," said Adaar, then let out another huge sneeze.

"Right," said Bull, as the Inquisitor disentangled herself from the cat again, "anyone else feel like making camp early today?"

\- - -

Four hastily put-up tents and an elfroot potion down the Inquisitor's throat later, and Adaar was looking in rather better shape, if still miserable. Dorian had made the mistake of taking off his boots and pouring the sludge out onto the ground, and had spent the following three minutes trying to stop the kitten from drinking it.

"Get _away_ , you ridiculous creature," said Dorian, punctuating his words with shooing motions aimed at the kitten's nose. The kitten just ducked his hand, or tried to jump over it when he went low.

"You realise that's probably the same crap it was drinking before we got here, right?" said Bull. He'd pulled up a log opposite Dorian's, and had a full view of the mage versus feline contest.

"Which is almost certainly toxic," said Dorian.

"I guess you'd know," said Varric, leaning back. "I've seen the shit you knock back at the tavern."

Dorian spread his hand flat in an effort to block the kitten's vision. It was spectacularly unsuccessful.

"At least I draw the line at things people have actually died in. Call me picky," he said, but he gave up all the same. The kitten immediately scrambled past him and started licking at the dank puddle of water.

"Foul beast," he grumbled.

Bull grinned. "I bet any pets you had lived off snowmelt and dragon tears."

"Oh, we never had pets," said Dorian, watching the kitten.

"Never?"

"Well, we had peacocks," he said, thinking back. "But they didn't really count as pets. You didn't so much keep them as dodge them. We had to stop having garden parties after they started going for the guests."

"Peacocks?" said Bull, raising an eyebrow. "Those are the weird Vint birds with the huge tails, right?"

"Also noisy, messy, and satisfied by nothing less than blood? Yes."

"Those things?"

Dorian leaned forward on his log. "Have you ever been savaged by a peacock? Take it from me, if you see one coming for you with beak and claws, you run. Or break out the fire spells, I suppose, but it's considered bad form to barbecue the host's ornaments. Even if they are enraged by magisterial robes."

That made Bull laugh out loud, and Dorian's lips tugged themselves into a smile.

"What about you?" he asked. "Any pets as a child?"

Curiosity - well in a way, that was the crux of whatever strange arrangement he and Bull had going on. And that was hardly anything unfamiliar. He knew well enough that initial curiosity that led to a night in a stranger's bed, wondering exactly what they'd look like naked or how they'd sound with his lips wrapped round their cock, though he'd admittedly needed to expand his hypotheses more than usual for Bull.

It was the post-sex curiosity that was new to him. He found himself wanting to know where Bull had come from, who he'd been. What he'd been drinking with the Inquisitor last week. What Dorian might say to put that slow smile on his face.

If he'd been hoping for an interesting anecdote to fill in more of the puzzle though, he was to be sorely disappointed. Bull simply said: "Qunari don't have pets."

"Not at all? What do you use to keep down the vermin?" asked Dorian.

"Oh we have cats, sure, but they're not pets. And I was never in charge of keeping them," said Bull.

Whatever other fascinating facts he might have learned were cut off by the Inquisitor's sneeze. It was more restrained than her previous efforts: a practically genteel affair.

"Feeling better?" asked Varric.

Adaar rubbed her nose and pulled herself up straighter. "Yes, mostly. But..." she looked at the kitten, which was now rolling in the dirt beside Dorian's feet. "I don't know what we're going to do about the cat."

"Put it back where we found it?" said Varric. Dorian was glad he hadn't made the suggestion, because the Inquisitor's face suggested it was an offence worthy of being dragged in front of her throne and sentenced.

"Not an option," said Adaar. "One of you will have to take it till we reach Skyhold."

Dorian laughed, looking to Bull to suggest he get his first pet, but found both Bull and Varric eyeing him up with matching grins.

"What? You -" He broke off as he realised. "Oh no, you can't possibly be thinking I'll take it."

He laughed, but no-one joined in.

"Why not?" said Bull. "You were the one fussing over it with the water."

"What, so just because I don't actively want to poison it, that makes you think I should keep it?"

Bull shrugged. "I've seen worse starts."

Dorian turned to Varric, but Varric immediately held up both hands.

"Don't look at me!" he said. "The family got a nug once. My brother sat on it within a week."

"But that's one week of keeping a nug alive against my zero weeks of keeping anything," said Dorian, a little desperately. "You're clearly more qualified."

"Sorry, Sparkler. I don't work with animals."

"But Hawke had a mabari, I remember!" Dorian insisted.

"Well yeah, but," Varric chuckled, "have you any idea how smart those things are? We taught it to play Diamondback. And no-one said I had to look after it."

Bull put a hand on his shoulder, half-comforting, half-cajoling. "Come on. It looks like you, you have to take it."

Dorian gaped.

"Excuse me? You _literally_ call yourself Iron Bull. Should we find you some druffalo to follow you round?"

"Depends. Can the druffalo fight?"

"Oh - you're impossible!" said Dorian, and turned to the Inquisitor, his friend and supporter. "You're the one who wanted to take care of it. You can't possibly think this is a good idea?"

"I don't know," said Adaar. "I think Bull makes a good point."

"A good point? He said I should look after it because we both have moustaches!"

"You don't agree?" said Adaar, and Dorian realised that her look was the familiar up and down she gave them before she commissioned three suits of armour made entirely from dawnstone, or decided that her entire party needed identical hats. She was picturing him and the cat, and whatever she saw apparently fit her vision.

A tugging on his boot made him look down. The kitten was attacking his buckle.

He looked back up at the Inquisitor, waiting for his reply.

"Oh, fine," he said. "I can see when I'm outnumbered."

\- - -

Getting the kitten into the bag was a chore. Half an hour after they'd started packing up to move on, and Dorian was ready to kill Varric for telling _blatant lies_ about cats in satchels.

He'd knelt down, emptied his elfroot bag and had tried putting the kitten in, coaxing it in, and icing the ground around the bag in the vain hope that the cat would decide to stay where it was warm and not immediately shake itself free and skid off onto drier ground.

Dorian sighed and left it stroll off when a familiar shadow fell over him.

"Come to see me bested?" he said, without looking up. "I did _say_ I didn't know what I was doing."

"Oh, I just like watching you on your knees," said Bull, a smirk coming through into his voice. Dorian did look up then, and was unsurprised to see him grinning.

"In the mud and failing to wrangle a kitten. It must be a terribly attractive picture," said Dorian, and turned round fully. "Why did you come over?"

"Have you tried using your lyrium pouch instead of the elfroot one?" asked Bull.

"No, why?"

Bull raised an eyebrow, and gestured to the floor where Dorian had flung his lyrium pouch. The kitten had meandered over to it, and was alternately sniffing it and rubbing its head along the edge of it.

"Hmm," said Dorian, and for lack of better options, picked up the bag, pulled out the potions, and put it back down, the end open. It took all of about two seconds for the kitten to make a beeline for it and start trying to wriggle in voluntarily.

"Really?" said Dorian, staring.

Bull looked from the kitten to him. "You're complaining?"

"No! Cats and lyrium, why not?" said Dorian, scooping up the bag with the speed of a striking archdemon in a bid to cut off the kitten's escape. "Foolish of me to think these animals would make _sense_."

There was a _mrow_ from inside his bag, and he looked down to see a moustachioed nose emerge from under the lid. He didn't _think_ he'd hurt it putting it in, but he gave the flap a stilted stroke all the same.

Bull headed outside, and Dorian followed, still in mid-speech.

"But you see how unqualified I am now, yes?" he said, waving an arm in an attempt to stop the tent flaps from sliding over the bag as he walked out into the camp. "A proper cat owner would've known that sort of thing, surely. Oh, cats, of course you lure them with lyrium! And keep them underwater, and feed them dragon meat till they grow big and strong!"

Bull paused. "No way could she eat a dragon," he said, but with the definite impression that it was a theory he'd be testing at some point.

"She might, for all I know," Dorian muttered, then realised. "Wait, she?"

Varric appeared out of a tent on the opposite side of the tent, Bianca in hand. From the smirk he was wearing as he strolled over, he'd been listening to the conversation.

"Think so. Didn't get that good a look at her in your tent, but I'm pretty sure."

"See? I didn't even -" The remaining tent flap opened to reveal the Inquisitor, rubbing her nose, and Dorian reduced his voice to a hiss, "- notice _that_!"

The Bull smiled, and lowered his own voice as their party members approached.

"Just keep an eye on her, and you'll pick up on stuff," he said, and clapped Dorian on the shoulder. With the size of Bull's hand, it felt somehow both encouraging and like being patted by a large carpet beater. "You'll get the hang of it."

" _Mrow_ ," said the bag again, and Dorian thought he might pick more up if he could see more than the kitten's paw, sneaking under the flap and going for his belt buckles.

\- - -

All his years of fine outfits and courting controversy, and Dorian had never had anyone pay him the level of attention his bag received as they left the camp. Every time he reached down to give the kitten a quick stroke in the hopes of keeping it in the bag, Adaar stared at it like she might just rip the pouch off his belt and run with it. He was inclined to let her. She kept flexing the hand with the mark, and he preferred that directed at rifts and demons rather than his accessories, thank you very much.

Even Varric glanced from time to time, and knowing Varric, he could be checking that things weren't going tits-up, or hoping that they might. Bull didn't even bother hiding his little smirks as he looked at the pouch.

"Are we amusing you?" he asked, after the umpteenth look he caught, pushing the kitten's head back gently from where she was threatening to lean right out of the bag.

"Just wondering what you're going to call her," said Bull.

"I'm not," said Dorian.

"You're not giving her a name?"

"No, I know how this goes. If I name her, I'll have to keep her."

"I could name her," said Bull. "I'm good at nicknaming things."

Dorian stopped dead, and looked pointedly at the sky. Bull turned to watch.

"What're you doing?"

"Oh, I was just waiting," said Dorian, returning his gaze to the Bull. "I assumed there'd be some lightning, or a thunderclap or something. Some way the Maker himself would use to show his offence at that horrendous lie."

"You haven't even heard what I'd call her."

"I don't have to. I've heard the nicknames you give the Chargers."

"Aw, come on, some of those are pretty good!" said the Bull, and laughed. Dorian was actually involved with a man who laughed at the thought of his own puns. The worst thing was, they _weren't_ all entirely terrible, but to praise one would leave himself open for a landslide.

He knew he should leave it there, but the Bull had hinted, and now he had to know. Dorian, in the full knowledge he'd regret it and yet unable to resist, said, "What would you call her, then?"

"Bruiser," said Bull.

"You can't be serious."

"Well, go on, what would you call her?"

"I told you, I refuse to be sucked into this -"

"Fang."

"No."

"Ripper."

"Absolutely not."

"Alright, how about Claudette?"

Dorian scrutinised him. "What's wrong with Claudette?"

"Nothing," said Bull, shrugging. "I met a nice Orlesian lady called Claudette once."

"Oh," said Dorian.

"Also," said Bull, raising his hand and miming a gesture with the tips of his fingers bent, " _Claw_ -dette. Get it? Because -"

Dorian, afterwards, was fairly sure he'd have succeeded in his effort to leap at Bull and strangle him any other time. He wasn't used to confronting people with a kitten in his bag, however. His only warning was the _"MRRP!"_ from by his waist before he felt claws between the straps at his side.

Like a scene set next to one of the time rifts, he saw the moment unravel with nothing he could do to push it off course. The cat shot one way, to land on the Bull's arm, and he went the other, falling ass first into the lake.

If the smell hadn't been enough before, the thick splosh as he landed was enough to confirm that no, whatever it was covering his body and his face and _in his nostrils, ugh_ , was not just water.

Dorian surfaced, and spat out what he dearly, dearly hoped was a piece of pondweed. Bull's face was twisted with concern when he first blinked the water out of his eyes, but by the second blink the laugh was clearly cracking through.

"You trying to take her for a swim now?"

The groan of corpses rising across the lake from behind him cut off any answer Dorian might have made, apart from the "Fasta vass!" when he felt for his lyrium pouch halfway through casting a barrier, and found only a single bottle and a hollow space big enough for a kitten. The kitten in question was busy chasing a shadow on the bank, while the party chopped up undead.

He did manage to send a blast wide and send up a wave of brownish green water that went right over the Bull, though. As replies went, it wasn't the most eloquent, but it was immensely satisfying.

\- - -

There was a single scout on duty when they reached the next camp, warming her hands by the fire. She jumped when the Inquisitor walked in, then stared with her hand still fixed to her head in a salute as the rest of them squelched up to the tents. Dorian got a particularly wide-eyed version of the look, which made sense given that there wasn't an inch of him that wasn't dripping brown.

"No need to worry!" he bit out, shaking a clump off his hand and taking a little pleasure in watching her flinch. "It's just Ferelden finally rubbing off on me."

He pulled the kitten out of his bag and - carefully - plonked her in the scout's hands.

"Watch this for me, will you?" he said, as she  handled the squirming ball of fur like a grenade. He had the urge to grab the cat back, but that was a ridiculous thing to do when he was, ugh, _oozing_. Scouts, they dealt with wild animals and such, surely one could be trusted to kitten watch? "I need to borrow your boot scraper."

The scout, fortunately, found herself with hands too full of kitten to object, so he stalked over to where she'd left it, moved away from the tents, and started scraping thick layers of mud off his arms.

"You need any help getting your back?" asked Bull from behind.

"I'll manage," said Dorian, through gritted teeth, flicking a clump of slime onto the ground. Eventually, he dropped the boot scraper entirely, cast some _very careful_ ice spells, and froze the mud section by section so he could pick it off like an eggshell.

When he'd got through enough of the muck to upgrade himself from walking pillar of filth to merely dirty, he took the kitten back from the scout, and went to his tent to change.

"Sure you don't need any help?" called Bull.

"I'm fine!" said Dorian. Slamming the flap to a tent was essentially impossible, but he made a strong attempt as he crawled in.

He regretted his exit almost as soon as he was sat inside, with no fire to keep out the chill and no-one to tell him what he was supposed to be doing with the kitten, which was nosing at the tent walls.

He sighed, and then reached out a hand, almost like an experiment. The movement got the kitten's attention. After a quick glance back to check that there were no shadows on the tent flap from anyone standing outside, he stretched his hand out further and wiggled it at her.

Slowly, slowly, she approached just close enough to sniff it, then darted back when he crooked his fingers.

"Skittish thing, aren't you?" he said. "I suppose living with corpses can't be terribly good for the nerves."

A thought occurred, and he rooted around in his satchel. The kitten was tempted in by each new thing he pulled out, but jumped back each time he let it clatter on the ground. Eventually, he found the day's rations. Two of the scouts had trapped and roasted a bogfisher, and since the idea of eating bogfisher made him want to vomit, catfood seemed a much less messier end.

He drew out a small handful - ugh, the smell - and held it in the kitten's direction. Her nose twitched. She slunk up, and after a pause, took a bite. Then another.

"And I thought this would be difficult," he said, and after a moment of hesitation about as long as the kitten's, ran a hand down her back. She stayed there when she'd finished the food, so he kept doing it until she was arching her back into each stroke. Her obvious pleasure was undeniably gratifying.

She rumbled.

He snapped his hand back. The speed of it might've been embarrassing if anyone had been watching, but he wasn't waiting to see if she'd growl again before she bit him.

She kept rumbling, and it was only then he realised: she was purring.

"Suck-up," he said, and then, putting his hand back, "Oh, alright."

\- - -

At first, Dorian was glad to see that only Bull was sitting out by the fire; the others must have gone to their separate tents to clean off. Then he had the thought that Bull might have stayed out waiting for him, and he felt much less inclined to go over.

He stood by the flap for his tent, shifting his weight, waiting for Bull to look up. But he didn't, so it was up to him to walk up to the fire and pull up a log a little way from Bull's.

There was a pause. Dorian put the kitten on the ground, reached out as she took an experimental step towards the fire, then dropped his hand - without taking his eye off her - when she sat down. He'd been led to assume cats had adequate self-preservation instincts, but this one hadn't run yowling the minute she'd been presented to him, so who knew.

"I... may have been a bit tetchy before. I'm sorry," he said, into the crackling of the flames.

The air was filled with wood smoke, but he breathed it in deep. He'd always liked the smell.

Bull smiled over at him. His eyes were warm in the light. "You, tetchy? I barely noticed under all that mud."

"Don't remind me," groaned Dorian. "I'm not sure there's anything of those robes _left_."

"I'm not complaining," said Bull, with a grin.

Dorian rubbed the backs of his arms. The fire was doing a well enough job of heating his legs and the front of his torso, but everything out of range was covered in goosepimples. He had the sneaking suspicion that the chill had settled into his bones, and he was  regretting his previous ice spells.

More and more when they were at camp, Dorian had been eyeing up Bull's bulk and wondering if it would cut off the cold if he pressed himself right up against Bull's side and nagged until Bull provided one of those massive arms to warm the backs of his shoulders. The man was a furnace; it was one of both his best and worst qualities as a bed partner. It made for a lovely afterglow, when Dorian could relax in the dual sensations of being well-fucked and the closest to warm he'd been since coming to the blighted south. Leaving when he'd recovered his wits, however, was less than easy.

Strictly speaking, getting Bull to warm him up in camp would be the practical option. It was hardly likely that Varric or the Inquisitor would object.

But they didn't do that, he and Bull. It wasn't something included in this arrangement they'd made, so Dorian couldn't add it.

An image, unbidden: sitting in his favourite Skyhold chair with Bull's arm over his shoulders and a kitten curled in his lap.

The kitten got up from her place by the fire - because that was what he needed, a pet incapable of sitting still for more than two minutes - and sauntered over to sniff Bull's feet. Bull brought down a hand towards her, in a gesture subtle enough that he could have been going to scratch his knee, but the kitten backed off.

Bull shrugged and went back to watching, and Dorian knew, _knew_ he wouldn't make another attempt for the rest of the night.

He sighed.

"Here," he said, handing over a small handful of the meat. "She's disgustingly partial to bribery."

The cat's head swung round, eyes fixed on the meat, and she abandoned Dorian without hesitation. She made a beeline for the Bull and was winding round his ankle in seconds, with all the shame of an eager barmaid.

Bull's face cracked into a smile. Dorian might - _might_ \- have been offended to be dropped so easily, but watching Bull croon and stroke the top of her head with the very tips of his fingers rather deflated his affront. He felt a smile of his own appear.

"Loyal to the point of practicality," he said, as Bull pinched some more meat between finger and thumb and held it out for her to snap at. "I suppose that shows some intelligence, at least."

"Hey," said the Bull.

"What?"

Bull gestured downwards. "She's coming back to you."

Dorian looked down, and sure enough, the cat was strolling straight back over now she'd finished with the Bull. Feeling oddly honoured, he stretched his hand down and scratched behind her ear.

After a few seconds, he looked up, only to see the Bull smiling at him with something soft and fond in his eyes. He had the uncomfortable feeling that it mirrored his own expression from a moment ago.

"I knew you liked her," said Bull.

"I never said I didn't," said Dorian. "If I disliked her, it wouldn't matter if I did a good job of this or not."

He took his dinner bowl out of his satchel, poured out a feline-sized helping of his own water - barely a trickle onto the wood, since it wasn't as if he could refill the flask with bogwater - and plonked the kitten next to it. She sniffed at the surface of the water and took a single lick. Then she sat back, unimpressed.

"I saw you drink _mud_ earlier," Dorian told her.

"Maybe that's what she's used to," said Bull. "You could mix some of the mire water in, see if she'll go for it."

"Are you joking? Who knows what's in that!"

"The same things that were in it earlier, I'd guess."

"Yes," said Dorian, "but I need to take even more care now. I'm already the evil Vint to most of Skyhold. Can you imagine what they'd do to me if they found out I killed a kitten?"

He didn't mean for a sigh to slip out partway, but it did, and he found himself looking down and away from Bull to where the kitten was washing herself. He picked her up.

"This is really getting to you, isn't it?"

Dorian shook his head, but it wasn't a denial. "I don't know what I'm doing."

"You sure? You seem like a cat guy to me. You know, you spend a lot of time up in that library corner of yours. You don't need something to bounce ideas off while you're up there?"

"I don't lack for company," said Dorian.

"Never said you did," said Bull.

Dorian looked at him.  His palm was still open on his lap and the floor was scattered with crumbs.

 "Did you want her?" he asked.

"Nah, there's no way I could keep a pet as a merc," said the Bull. "A Mabari, maybe, though it'd get right up the Orlesian clients' noses. But something as small as her? Not happening."

A fair point, though Dorian noted that "can't keep" wasn't the same as "don't want", and Bull was continuing to watch the kitten squirm over Dorian. Yet again, she launched a paw at one of his belt buckles, and he dearly hoped that cat claws couldn't scratch silverite.

She turned her head up, pupils wide, face expectant. With his moustache, damn it, and there was no reason that should have been so endearing. It wasn't a moment made to last, though; she wriggled onto his knee and jumped right off his lap.

The idea occurred to him as he watched her go.

"Oh! I've been obtuse!" he said. "I can give her to Cole!"

Bull raised an eyebrow. "Cole? Really? Don't get me wrong, he's a good kid, but he's not always... you know, all there."

"No, he'll be perfect! He'll know exactly what she wants at all times! And it'll be a valuable experience in humanity."

"The cat's not human."

"I meant that lots of people have pets. And seem to take pleasure in them. He'll enjoy showing her round."

"If you say so," said Bull.

There was a meow from by his feet. The kitten rubbed against his boot. He had no idea what she wanted - more meat? More plague-ridden water? - but that was okay. Even he could keep her alive until they got back, couldn't he?

He shivered, and picked her up. The Bull's smile was visible out of the corner of his eye.

"I'm cold," he said, "and she's covered in fur. The least she can do is loan it."

He expected Bull to make a joke - something mocking his intolerance to the cold, to which he'd respond with a jibe about his bulk keeping him warm, or something. That was the way of things.

What Bull actually said was, "So why don't you come over here then?"

He patted the length of log next to him, just in case Dorian had any doubt as to his meaning.

"Over - next to you?" he said all the same, because just because he understood didn't mean he _understood_.

"You don't have to," said Bull. "But I don't think the other two are coming back out tonight, if that's what you're worried about."

"It's not," said Dorian, and was surprised to realise it was true. Not that he particularly wanted the others watching, but the idea didn't make him feel sick the way it had when the truth about he and Bull had started edging into the ears of Skyhold.

It was more like leaning against a door and having it swing open and fling him onto the floor. He'd thought about it, yes, but he'd been following the lines Bull had drawn, and the idea that they weren't as comfortably set in stone as he'd thought - or worse, that he'd misunderstood them - was disconcerting.

But if Bull was drawing the lines, it was up to him to decide to cross them. _You don't have to_ , Bull had said, and well. He was never one to refuse a challenge.

He stood up, cat in hands, and crossed the vast distance between his log and Bull's. Bull smiled up at him, with an expression that was annoyingly like the one he'd used when he'd been trying to coax the kitten. Dorian ignored it and sat down. He left a safe inch of space to start with, then decided that if the point was to be warm, it was ridiculous not to do this properly, so he shuffled over and pressed his side up against Bull's.

Bull was indeed warm, in a way which seeped into all the muscles down his side, and he failed to resist the urge to melt in further.

A few seconds after he'd sat down, he felt a light pressure - fingertips - on his back. They were gone in the moment it took for him to turn to the Bull, who was watching the fire with a gaze that seemed a little too fixed. It took him a minute, but it clicked.

It was hard to remember with his easy offers and his easier smiles, that the Bull's door wasn't unlocked for just anyone. That Dorian - come to think of it - had never bumped into anyone coming back the other way. That it was Dorian's tent he hung around and Dorian he stuck too close to and Dorian's kitten - temporary kitten - that he offered tips on raising, despite being almost, _almost_ as clueless.

This, whatever this was they were doing: had the Bull done it before?

Slowly, slowly, soft enough that he could pull away in a second  if Bull queried it, he placed his hand on Bull's back.

Bull turned his head, and that was almost enough to make him think twice, but his expression split into one of those smiles that seemed to fill his whole face, the one he got in bed in the quiet space between the sex and Dorian leaving. His arm came up, more sure than any of Dorian's gestures, and settled itself around Dorian's shoulder. It pulled him in tighter against Bull's side. The warmth spread all over and around him, with a smaller spot of heat in his lap where the kitten had decided to curl up.

He felt fingers slide over his knuckles, and he parted his own so the Bull's hand could wrap round.

So perhaps their arrangement was simply the blind leading the blind. In Bull's case, he was literally halfway there. But maybe, Dorian thought, stroking the cat with one hand and Bull's palm with the other, it might not be completely doomed.

\- - -

He'd have been lying if he said there wasn't a temptation to "accidentally" fall asleep on Bull and spend the night outside, soaking in his warmth. But quite apart from anything else, logs were not things designed to be sat on lengths of time without parts going numb, and the chill of the night got into his bones at a level that even the Bull couldn't do anything about. The kitten got bored and jumped off his lap, and he had to concede defeat when it looked like she was about to wander off into the Mire.

"I believe that's my cue," said Dorian, and tried to get up and casually go pick up the cat without falling over from the stiffness in his muscles. The kitten squawked when he picked her up, but thankfully didn't seem to want a fight.

"Well, it's been... " Dorian said, and felt for a joke, and somehow couldn't quite manage it in the glow of the fire and the Bull's gaze.

 "Pleasant," he finished, dropping all pretences. "It's been pleasant."

Bull scratched his chin. "You know, that door always open rule doesn't just apply to Skyhold," he said, like an afterthought. "Just saying."

Dorian followed Bull's gaze to his tent, unsure of whether he was offering the usual night time activities or  a continuation of what they'd started. Or both, and there was a thought, the delicious possibility of exhausting himself on top of Bull before curling in to sleep at his side. But the kitten wriggled in his hands, and he knew it wasn't an option.

"The offer is appreciated," he said, without specifying which offer he thought was on the table, "but it looks like I'm going to have to share a tent with her. I doubt you want us both as bed companions."

Bull grimaced. "Yeah, that's a point. Well, let's hope she doesn't drive you crazy before the sun's up."

"Indeed," said Dorian, then paused, before deciding that well, why not?

He walked back over to Bull, slid a hand down his cheek, and kitten held out in the other hand, dived in for a deep, firm-lipped kiss. Bull responded in kind, while Dorian tried to convey all the promises he was making with the pressure of his mouth.

Bull looked flatteringly dazed by the time they broke apart.

"A conversation to finish at Skyhold, I think," murmured Dorian, low in Bull's ear, and having got in the last word, tried to make for the tent as fast as possible without looking like he was actually rushing.

He was almost fast enough that he almost missed Bull's, "Now _that_ was a goodnight" behind him.

\- - -

Of course, that left him alone in the dark with the kitten, and no idea of what to do next.

"I don't suppose you feel like lying down... oh, I don't know, over there?" he asked her.

She meowed, wound round his foot, and attacked his boot buckle. Again. Maker help him, he was going to have to find slip-on shoes. The worst part was, after catching her intent, moustachioed glare, he found himself loathed to warn her off.

"This is a terrible habit, you know, and most people would stop you," he told her, ever so slowly unfastening the boot with the kitten attached and sliding his foot out. "Fortunately, I happen to be incredibly generous. Remember that next time you're thinking of scratching me."

He removed the boot to the corner, placed the kitten next to it, and wiggled a buckle with his finger till it got her interest again.

"And that solves that problem," he added, and lay down on the bedroll.

There was a stretch of time - how long, he wasn't sure - where he drifted off to the sound of jingling, and then something shifted and he woke up with a pressure on his arm. He cracked open an eye. Through his narrowed vision, he saw a blur of black and white fur curled up against him. The faintest vibrations of purrs were spreading up his side.

Well, that worked too, he thought, and closed his eyes again.

\- - -

He changed his mind when she woke up him up by _pouncing on his hand_.

The second time, he was considering throwing out the freezing spells.

The third time was the last straw, but fortunately the one where he had the wonderful idea of drawing a barrier glyph in the corner and placing the kitten inside it.

"Look, I've left you plenty of room to walk around," he said, to her squawked protests. "Oh, I'm sorry, how unreasonable of me to want an hour's sleep before fighting off corpses tomorrow!"

He lay back down, and she meowed again. He sighed.

"I'll let you out in a couple of hours, I promise. Just - sleep, please." He closed his eyes before he could think too hard about why he was trying to explain things rationally to a cat.

\- - -

The fourth time he woke up, looking for her while refraining from the temptation to make a cat-sized icicle was becoming second nature. It was so much so that he spent a good thirty seconds rooting round half-asleep before he remembered the glyph.

There was no longer a glow in the corner.

He  swore as he went over and inspected the ground, which contained neither glyph nor cat. There was a small heap of soil where one of the lines would have crossed. In an impressive feat of double humiliation, the cat had apparently both messed in his tent and destroyed his barrier burying it.

There were a few pawprints in the mud. They led out under the tent flap.

\- - -

The moon was up when he stumbled outside, and the air hadn't got any less biting. His breath came out in clouds. Following the pawprints took him to the edge of the camp, but at that point the ground got too boggy to support tracks. Even the scout probably wouldn't be able to make anything of it. The one clue present was that she'd headed out into the Mire.

The kitten was gone.

They'd given her to him for a _day_ , and he'd already lost her. A scrap of black and white fur that went for inanimate objects, with scratches on her ear and nose to prove her lack of survival skills. Even a four-person Inquisition party struggled against the undead, what was she going to do? Win them over by purring? And - oh, what would the _Inquisitor_ think? She'd trusted the cat to him.

Only one thing for it, it seemed. He'd have to just go after her.

He looked out at the mist rising off the black water, and decided that although he'd been known to make some less-than-thought-through decisions in the past, walking into the Mire without telling anyone crossed the line from reckless into stupidity.

A note, then, only he realised with a groan that the only paper and ink was stuffed in the Inquisitor's bag, and that put him right back at square one.

It was no good. Trying to stay as light on his feet as possible, he made his way across the camp site, crouched down by Bull's tent, and opened the flap.

Despite the chill in the air, Bull had seen fit to toss his blanket to one side of the tent, and was lying sprawled and gloriously naked down the middle. The moonlight caught the edges of his chest. Even with the urgency, Dorian couldn't stop himself from pausing and getting a good look, drinking it in in a way he never really had the opportunity to.

A flash of memory: standing outside Bull's door the second time, feeling out-of-sorts and knowing how easily it could be fucked out of him. When, he wondered, had he started seeing Bull as someone to go to for other kinds of help?

Unfortunately, although Bull had managed to snore through every creak of the bed and the swing of the door whenever Dorian left after their arrangement, something about the air was different for him here. He wasn't snoring at all, for a start, and it was barely a few seconds before his eyes snapped open and locked on Dorian's.

They narrowed for a moment, and then he blinked and a slow smile spread over his face.

"Hey," he rumbled, "Your bedroll a little chilly for you?"

Dorian realised his folly at keeping silent as a Chantry sister only to wake up the loudest member of the Inquisition, but it was done now.

He settled for hissing, "Will you keep it down?"

"Sure. We can be as quiet as you like," said Bull, and if anything his smile spread wider.

"It's not about that," said Dorian, pushing down the impulse to find out what _that_ entailed, exactly. "The cat's gone missing."

Bull raised an eyebrow. "Thought she was in your tent."

"She was. Now she isn't. I'm going to go look for her before the Inquisitor wakes up and finds out."

"For fuck's sake," grumbled Bull. Then, "We'll have to wake her up anyway, and Varric, if we're going back out into the Mire," said Bull.

Dorian made a frustrated noise. "Weren't you listening? The whole point of this is that the Inquisitor never has to know."

"You're that worried about how she'll take it?" said Bull, looking straight at him.

It did sound ridiculous, when put into context, but the situation was already so far into ridicule that Dorian felt one more point wouldn't hurt. Even so, it wasn't an entirely unfamiliar feeling, the wanting desperately to please and impress; he remembered it from the early days with Alexius. Adaar had seen him at possibly the most sordid depth his family drama had reached, and yet she'd looked him in the eye and told him she thought _more_ of him. It rather impressed the fear of how he might make her think less.

"If you want to fight tomorrow next to an Inquisitor who spent half the night searching in bogs for a kitten, be my guest," he said instead. "I'm only waking you so someone knows where I've gone. It shouldn't take long, but I'd be grateful if you raised the alarm if I'm not back by sunrise."

Bull grunted. "Screw that," he said. "No way are you going back out there alone in the dark."

"It's always dark here," Dorian pointed out.

"Okay, yeah," said Bull, scratching his head. "But my point stands. If you're heading out, I'm coming too."

He stretched out with audible pops in his arms and knees. He didn't look well-rested at all, and Dorian felt a pang of guilt at not just sorting out the mess himself.

"I didn't ask you to," he said.

Bull shrugged. "Well, you've got a choice. Either I go with you, or I get up now and wake the others. It's up to you."

Dorian looked to the wall of the tent, then behind through the flap at the waiting murk. Blast it, but Bull had a point.

"Alright, alright," he said. "If you want to join me on a fun jaunt through the undead, who am I to refuse?"

\- - -

Heading a little way past where the kitten's tracks ended revealed a crushed patch of grass, and, further down,  what Bull thought could be a pawprint. It looked like a bumpy bit of ground to Dorian, and he said so.

"Yeah, but if is a print, it means she was heading down this hill." He pointed down the slope, which had another of those murderous-looking lakes at the bottom. "That makes sense, right?"

"You don't know that track is hers," said Dorian.

"You don't know it isn't."

Dorian sighed. "Fine, you're right. I'm out of other ideas. Let's go down here for now."

They walked down the trail, or what there was of one, in silence for a while. Dorian was too busy scanning the surroundings for a tell-tale tuft of black and white to make conversation.

The Bull, it seemed, was not. Into the quiet he said, "You know, this would be easier if we had  a name to call."

"I've told you, I'm not naming her!" said Dorian.

Bull looked down at him from the side as they walked. "Hypothetically."

Dorian stayed quiet for a second, then glanced at Bull's face, and just knew this wasn't a subject he was going to let go.

He had dragged Bull out here in the middle of the night, he supposed. He turned his head and sighed. "Alright. Adralla."

"Adralla?"

"A magister back in the Black Age. She fled Tevinter and ended up working with the Orlesian chantry." He smiled, a little twisted. "The circumstances are similar enough for a cat resembling me, don't you think?"

He looked back up at Bull, saw the corners of his lips slowly rise, and immediately regretted his words.  
  
"Good name," said Bull, with a shit-eating grin.

"You can't - you tricked me! Hypothetically, you said, remember?"

"Look, we can go back to calling her It if you really want," said Bull. "But come on. Are you seriously telling me you haven't had that in the back of your head for the whole day?"

"I might have considered it. As a _hypothetical_ exercise," said Dorian, bristling as the trap closed.

 "Well, it seems to me we can either call her your name, or use one of mine," he said.

"That's just fighting dirty!"

The Bull raised an eyebrow. "Oh, I can fight a lot _dirtier_ than that."

"Vishante kaffas," said Dorian, and only just managed to stop himself from adding, 'not while we're looking for the kitten'.

Instead he said, somewhat helplessly, "But what about letting Cole name her?"

"He can rename her when we get back, if he wants," said Bull, shrugging. "But do you really think he'll care?"

"Probably not," grumbled Dorian. "Fine, Adralla it is."

\- - -

There was a tree bending out over the lake at the bottom of the hill.  On the longest, highest branch, there was a familiar black and white shape.

Dorian stood on the bank and looked at Adralla with disgust. She meowed.

"That had better be Cat for 'I am a shameful creature and deserve to be made into soup'," he told her.

"Don't take it personally," said the Bull. "He gets cranky when he's tired."

Adralla meowed again, a long _mow-ow-ow_ yowl. Her ears were flattened back, and her paws wrapped around the branch.

"She looks scared," murmured Dorian. Watching her distress made his skin crawl, but he had the feeling that if he tore his eyes away, she'd fall.

Bull nodded. "That'll make it trickier getting her down, if she's nervy. We'll have to be careful."

"Noted," said Dorian, and walked round the part of the trunk of the tree that wasn't edging into the water, looking for good handholds. Adralla yowled again up above him.

"You know, I'm sure a proper cat would be able to get themselves down," he said, looking up. Adralla's head whipped round and she squawked again when he met her eyes.

"Alright, alright," he said. If he were stuck in a tree, he supposed, he'd probably want the person on the ground to save the lectures until after the rescue. He looked at Bull. "Give me a leg up, will you?"

"No way are you planning what I think you're planning," said Bull.

"I'm going to climb up and get her. What did you think I was planning?"

Bull frowned and came up to the trunk, and placed a hand under the main branch.

"Yeah, no. This feels about as weak as it looks. It'll never take your weight for long."

"I don't see how we have much choice," said Dorian.

Bull looked out at the cat on the end of the branch. "She's not that high up. I bet I could reach to get her down."

"And how were you proposing to do that?" asked Dorian. "Stand on the bank and lean out at a 45 degree angle? Extend yourself like a snake?"

"There are plenty of rocks and stuff around. If I get one under her, I can stand on that. Use it as a platform to avoid the water."

"You'll still attract undead getting the rock into the water," Dorian pointed out.

Bull nodded. "Yeah. But hopefully not too many if we take it slowly."

It wasn't what he'd call a good plan, but it did sound less risky than his, and had the advantage of not needing him to climb. And time was of the essence; Adralla's meows were getting louder and longer now she could see them.

"Alright," said Dorian. "But - be careful, won't you?"

Bull smiled at him. "Don't worry. Getting the platform in will be the hard part, and you get to help with that."

Dorian was left standing awkwardly as the Bull strolled a little way back up the hill, looking for things to use.

"I - I simply meant that we're here to rescue the cat, not shower her in undead," he got out, but Bull was busy bent over something in the ground.

Bull rubbed his hands together, squatted, and ripped what appeared to be an old, moss-covered tree trunk that had fallen and been overgrown. He hoisted a whole three feet of wood onto his shoulder with a grunt. Dorian was torn  between admiring the way his muscles worked and disgust at the way he was now greenish brown up to the elbows.

"Cats are clean animals. Are you sure she won't look at that mess and run?" said Dorian, as Bull passed him back to the lake, then shook his head. "Then again, I suppose she's barely a proper cat anyway."

"Well, it's me or the water, so I'm hoping she makes the smart choice," said Bull.

He  lifted the trunk off his shoulder and placed it on the mud, facing the water. Dorian almost shuddered just looking at that dark, reflectionless surface, and feeling that static on the skin, ice in the lungs sense of death gone wrong somewhere. Bull crouched next to the trunk, two hands on its top.

"Right," he said, "I'm going to push this in, slowly as I can. Should mean we don't get too many, but I'm sure there'll be some assholes who are light sleepers, so you're on corpse duty."

"I'm not sure which of those two words are worse," said Dorian. Adralla yowled above him, and he looked up. "Yes, yes, I'll be neck-deep in skeletons in a minute, don't you worry."

"Okay. Three, two, one -" said the Bull, and started to slip the trunk into the water.

It was achingly slow. It was probably just as well that the Bull was the one designated to all the heavy lifting and such, because Dorian thought that if it'd been him, he'd have probably lost patience part way through and just shoved the thing in, then dealt with the consequences. As it was, there were only the barest of ripples making their way across the surface, enough that their decaying friends might have almost mistaken it for wind.

Unfortunately, _almost_ never made anyone Archon, and out in the dark he heard a groan echo. Spotted a gleam of bone.

"All yours!" said Bull.

"Too kind!" replied Dorian, with a sarcastic little bow that was utterly wasted since Bull's attention was on the log. He aimed his staff at the shadow in the shadows, at the place where the Fade was buzzing, and sent out a few fireballs. It disappeared with barely a splash.

When he looked down at the bank, he was surprised to see Iron Bull dusting off his hands and standing up.

"You kept going?" he said.

Bull shrugged. "I knew you had it in hand."

They looked at the log, or at least the greenish strip poking out of the water.

"It's deeper here than I thought," said the Bull, frowning. "I figured I'd have more to stand on."

"Shall we find something else?" asked Dorian.

"Nah. It's in the way now anyway," said Bull. "I'll just have to take it carefully."

He placed a foot on it, testing it, then shuffled out sideways along the log and out under the branch. Adralla, for a wonder, stopped meowing and fixed him with a look of feline suspicion.

He stood on the edge of the log and stretched his arms up. His fingers just brushed her paw, and she squawked.

"Shit, too high," he said, then in a softer voice, "Hey there. That's it, come to the Iron Bull."

Adralla seemed utterly unwilling to make the leap. Dorian could hardly blame her.

"She's got her claws in the branch. Hang on, I'll try to unhook her," said the Bull.

He got on tiptoes and fumbled for the branch, not quite getting a grip on her paw long enough to budge it. The log beneath him shook from side to side. The smooth lake surface shattered with ripples.

"Two - three undead incoming!" yelled Dorian.

"Crap," growled the Bull. "You got them?"

"Yes, yes, you get the cat!" said Dorian, and aimed his staff. He took out one before it had fully emerged from the water, then another as it made its way through the lake. The last one had stepped onto the bank by the time he got to it, and he was forced to blast it back before incinerating it.

There were two more coming out when he looked up; the log was still wobbling. Then Bull's foot slipped. The splash it made was audible even above the groans and meowing.

His eyes met Dorian's.

"Well, damn," he said.

Five more corpses exploded out of the water. Dorian sent out arcs of lightning to try and weaken as many as possible, but most kept on coming. One, two, three down,  but more were pushing back to the shore. Just as he thought he was about to get mobbed, Bull grabbed his axe off his back, and without stepping off the log, cut three down in a swing. Dorian took care of the last straggler with a flame blast.

The two of them stood panting amid the smell of singed corpse-flesh, with Adralla meowing plaintively above them.

"Stop, this is foolish," said Dorian. He hiked up his robes, found a knot on the trunk of the tree about waist height, and pulled himself up. He heard Bull's intake of breath as he looked around for the next handhold.

"What are you doing?" said Bull, in a not-entirely-unthreatening tone.

An excellent question, thought Dorian, heaving himself onto the branch. But rather than going back, he looked out at where his - his- bedwarmer and his... temporary cat were stuck, sighed, and crawled forward an inch.

"Sorry to barge in on your self-sacrificing heroics," said Dorian, through gritted teeth, "but I'm afraid you'll have to share some of the credit."

"Dorian -"

"The way you're going, you'll have a lake full of the undead down on us in the next few minutes. _Let me help._ "

Bull's face was stony, then the log wobbled again. Dorian spotted the rising skeleton over Bull's shoulder and spared one hand from the branch to send out a few fireballs. His other hand slipped, and he grabbed back on and clung for dear life. Bull looked like he wanted to abandon the cat and snatch him out of the tree, but then untensed.

"Alright," he said. "But go slow."

"Believe me, I wasn't planning on rushing!" said Dorian, the words coming out higher than he'd have liked. It was mortifying, but the two metre drop was almost as unnerving as the corpse-filled water at the bottom.

He edged forward a little further.

"And," said Bull, eyes fixed on him and voice almost as tight as his own, "I want my name first when Varric writes this thing up."

"Well, that hardly seems fair," said Dorian. His palms were feeling raw on the bark. One slide closer. "I'm the one doing all the movement here."

There was a splintering sound. Bull's arms lunged forward and Dorian stopped dead, heart racing, but nothing came down.

"Go back down. We'll figure something else out," said Bull.

"A little late for that," said Dorian, and shifted himself up to Adralla.

Her ears were flattened and her pupils were wide, and she made a sort of half-meow, half-growl as he went for her paws. He drew his hand back.

"I know, terribly inconsiderate of me not to leave you with the corpses," he said, trying to mimic the Bull's soft tone. He ran a hand along her back, and she tensed, but allowed it.

"Now then," he continued, moving his hand down to stroke her leg, "you remember me, yes? The fool who thought you might be interested in some fresh water? How about you come down and we'll try that again?"

Gently, gently, he pried her claws out of the trunk with one hand, supporting her with the other. He could have cried with relief when the last popped free. The Bull was still standing below, looking at them as if he wanted to climb up himself and pull Dorian off the branch.

Dorian slipped a hand under her and passed the furry ball to the Bull. He thought Adralla might have tried to lash out on her way down, but wyvern claws had a hard time ripping through Bull's skin. A kitten would probably be a nice back scratcher.

There was a cracking sound as he leaned back. Bull's eyes went wide.

"Jump down, now!" he said, dropping Adralla into the crook of one arm.

Dorian felt the branch dip and swung himself down, hoping he wouldn't break his ankles hitting the log, but he felt something slam round his waist and pull him in as he dropped. It took him a moment to realise he was against the familiar warm bulk of the Bull, who'd caught him one-handed. Bull flashed him a relieved smile, and then he was side-stepping back off the log and onto the bank, mage in one hand and cat in the other. As he got on dry land, there was a crack and a splitting sound and the whole branch gave way to dangle at an angle over the water.

Dorian considered protesting his dignity when he was placed back on shore, but under the circumstances, he decided magnanimity was the better course of action.

"Here's your cat," said Bull, passing him Adralla. She huddled into Dorian's robes, and he stroked her behind her ears until he felt the faintest of purrs vibrating through her body. It made something inside of him ache. He  couldn't remember having been a source of comfort quite like that before.

He looked up at the Bull, who was regarding them both with that fond look again, and the ache doubled.

"You know," he said, slowly. "You did help save her life back there. I rather think that entitles you to part-ownership."

"So you're not giving her to Cole, then?" asked Bull, and the words were like a bucket of water to the face.

Dorian loosened his hold on Adralla, let her settle in the crook of his elbow rather than up against his chest. "Yes, of course. I meant for the journey back."

"Right," said Bull.

It was his tone that caught Dorian's ear; it wasn't one he'd heard from the Bull before. The word had sounded flat.

"Are you alright?" he asked. "You didn't get any injuries from those undead?"

Bull's expression shifted into confusion; not that then. "I'm good."

Dorian paused, thought, and tried again.

"You're alright with my giving Adralla to Cole?"

A flicker in the eyes. "Sure."

"You're certain?"

"Yep. Really."

Dorian huffed. "If you have a problem, I'd appreciate it if you just _say_ so. I wouldn't ask if I didn't want to know."

"Fine," said Bull, shrugging. "Look, for what it's worth, I think you're already crazy enough about her to trek out into the Mire in the middle of the night, and you'll regret it if you give her up. And I think you'll take care of her just fine, as long as you leave her in Skyhold and find someone to feed her while you're away. But if you want to give her to Cole, give her to Cole."

Dorian's eyes widened. "You want her too."

"That's what you got out of that?" asked Bull, frowning.

"No, no, I heard what you said," said Dorian, waving a hand - though he didn't plan to think too hard about it right now - "but I also heard the rest. You can have a say too, you've been helping me with her."

Bull's face hardened by an almost unnoticeable amount. "And I'll keep helping, if you want, but this is your decision. She's your cat. Or not."

"You want this as much as I do, you ass!" said Dorian.

"This?"

"Oh, for the love of - you know what I mean"

"Fine," said Bull, face suddenly serious. "What is it _you_ want then, Dorian?"

Dorian thought about it, about the mess of sex and comments cruel and kind between them, and all the little moments of cat naming and cuddling and concern that didn't fit into any bracket he could come up with.

He laughed, a short, shaky thing. "I don't know!" He shook his head. "I honestly have no idea."

And at that moment, there was a groan like a dying druffalo from the tree, and both Dorian and Bull's heads were drawn round to it as the whole thing, trunk, roots, and all, toppled into the lake. The splash sent waves across the water, and sprayed liquid mud over both them and the cat.

There was silence.

The surface of the water began to bubble, right across the whole lake.

"Oh, shit," said the Bull.

"Shit indeed," agreed Dorian.

With a chorus of moans, more rotting heads than Dorian could count started rising out of the deeps. He'd never felt a wave of death like it.

"I know how much you like a fight," he said, eyes on the mob as he tightened his hold on Adralla, ignoring her claws in his robes. "But -"

"No, I'm with you, we run like hell," said the Bull, and with one exchanged look, they did.

Unfortunately, sprinting through marshy ground was easier said than done. It sucked at his feet and he had to tear his boots from it with every step. Sprinting through marshy ground while holding a cat was exhausting.

Dorian glanced back over his shoulder. "They're gaining on us! How are they gaining on us? Half of them don't have muscles anymore!"

"We're not that far from camp," said the Bull. "We just need to -"

"Lead them right on top of Varric and the Inquisitor?"

"You got any better ideas?"

"No," said Dorian, glancing back again, "but I don't think that one will work out."

Bull looked back too, just quick enough to get his axe ready and swing at the lead corpse. Dorian got his staff out, but he was hampered by having to hold onto Adralla with one arm. He put her in his satchel while sending out arc after arc of vaguely aimed lightning, but it was becoming increasingly clear they were outnumbered. Bull had to rip one skeleton off his arm and whack it with the axe in the other.

"For the record!" shouted Dorian. "You'll remember I didn't ask you to come!"

"Bet you're glad I did, though!"

"Actually," said Dorian, roasting three corpses in a wall of flame, "the way this is going, I really wish you hadn't."

Bull looked round in surprise, almost missing the undead lunging to his left. His expression grew disturbingly affectionate for someone caving in a skull.

"Well, I can't say I'm not wishing we'd woken up the others," he said, tossing the body aside. "But for the record? However this goes, this is where I want to be."

Dorian almost had an entire second to be touched before he had to fry an oncoming group. There were more behind them though, a whole second wave. He looked at Bull and exchanged a grim nod, before readying his staff.

Then the heavens opened, quite literally, in a flash of green. The corpses were caught in rift distortions. A hail of arrows caught the ones on the outside.

"I _knew_ I heard swords and explosions!" said Adaar, standing proud on the hill above them. Andraste's Herald or not, Dorian could have fallen down and worshipped her at that moment.

"You ever wish those sounds weren't so familiar?" asked Varric, readying his crossbow.

By the time the rift winked out, the four of them had re-massacred a swathe of the undead. Taking down the rest was just business as usual, and it was all of ten minutes before everyone's weapons were down again.

"The fight noises woke me," Adaar explained, as they headed back. "Happened a couple of times in the Valo-Kas. I worked out what was going on when I realised the two of you were missing from your tents, though," she said, and turned to Dorian with a wicked smile. "A tryst in the Fallow Mire? I'm surprised you weren't put off."

Adralla was tucked away in the satchel, he remembered.

He looked at Bull, and. Well. That much was hardly a secret, was it? And the Fallow Mire - Maker, the indignity, but he'd take undignified over incompetent.

At least this way Bull had to field awkward questions right alongside him.

"Oh, you know how it is," he said, weakly.

Bull leaned in over his shoulder. "He gets pretty loud when he's all worked up," he said, with the hint of a smirk. "Didn't want to wake you and Varric up."

Dorian attempted to give him a look that sent the message "I will set fire to your favourite axe" without ruining the cover story. Judging by the look Varric shot him, he wasn't entirely sure he'd succeeded.

And yet, then they got back to camp, Bull stopped him with a hand on his shoulder before he turned to go into the tent, and drew him into a kiss.

"If you _do_ fancy that tryst, you know where to find me," he said, did his ridiculous eyepatched wink (surprisingly easy to decipher; Bull's winks were written across his entire face), and went into his own tent.

Dorian couldn't think of anything he wanted more than a nice, corpse-free sleep, except possibly a bath, but he still sat down on the bedroll feeling oddly out of place.

Adralla had fallen asleep in his satchel.

\- - -

He woke up with the sun as nature intended. It wasn't what Dorian had intended, since he considered the hours before noon a cruel joke probably invented by Fereldens, but given the night he'd had, he'd take it.

 His attention was caught by a little noise coming from the direction of his feet. Adralla was still curled up in his satchel, making the tiniest snoring sounds he'd ever heard.

He was hopelessly unqualified, and he'd probably kill her by the end of the week and the whole thing would end in tears. But what if it didn't? He _liked_ the damn cat. Bull liked the damn cat, which shouldn't have mattered in the slightest, but somehow did. Dorian had run from his homeland and joined a renegade branch of the Chantry to fight a darkspawn magister. He'd figure out how to make this work if it killed him.

He scooped her up from the satchel, and she made a muffled, half-asleep squawk as he cradled her. He ignored it and took her outside. Considering everything, the least she could do was keep his hands warm.

\- - -

He kept her close on the journey back to Skyhold, to the point where he could hardly keep her off his lap whenever he sat down, unless he offered Bull's as a substitute. Bull was a good size for a kitten to sprawl on, and she seemed to find him as comfortable as he did.

Bull got this ridiculous unrestrained smile whenever he had Adralla on him, but he never brought up the plan to give her to Cole. In the end, Dorian didn't either until they were walking up to the gates of Skyhold.

"So," he said. "I was thinking. Adralla seems quite attached, doesn't she?"

Bull looked at him with a keen gaze. "She seems to be."

"So it would be cruel to abandon her with Cole now, wouldn't it?"

"Might be," said Bull, beginning to smile.

"So," said Dorian, speeding up as he got to the point of things, "I was thinking, what if I found a different cat for Cole? And kept Adralla? How does that sound to you?"

Bull's smile became a fully fledged beam. "That sounds pretty good to me."

"Well, good," said Dorian, and looked down. They'd arrived in front of the entrance, and he could hear the creaks and clatters of things opening up. Adaar was practically champing at the bit to get inside, and Varric was shuffling from foot to foot and murmuring something about a nice big ale.

"She'll probably be underfoot a lot," Dorian warned.

Bull shrugged. "Eh, we can put her outside for a bit if we want privacy."

"Are you joking? She'll freeze!"

"The other Skyhold cats are fine," Bull pointed out.

"Oh, that's another thing!" said Dorian. The gates opened, and they walked through, with him still going through his mental list. "She'll need a collar if she'll be mixing with others."

"There might be some leftover leather down at the armourer's."

"Hmm, but I was thinking snoufleur leather might stand out against the black. With a gold tag. Vivienne might know a good supplier."

"You're going to pamper her like an Orlesian purebred," said Bull, starting to laugh.

"And? Any cat of _mine_ -" said Dorian, and felt a little thrill at the word, "- deserves to be pampered. Besides, I see the way you're looking at her. You're besotted."

"It's the moustache," said Bull. "Gives her that extra charm."

Dorian did not, did _not_ feel his cheeks heat up.

Instead, he continued, with a voice that was entirely steady: "You can come up to my room if you like, when I get her settled in. I wouldn't be so cruel as to tear her from you immediately."

Bull looked at him sidelong.

"To your room."

"If you're not busy," said Dorian, wondering what was wrong with him that he'd invite his... companion to his bed for the first time to make sure the cat would be comfortable on it. Worse, that he'd thought it was a good idea.

But Bull, fortunately, was slower to catch onto the ridiculousness of it all, or perhaps he didn't care.

"Sure," he said, with a smile. "We can figure it out together."

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] Paws for Thought](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12355515) by [isweedan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/isweedan/pseuds/isweedan)




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